How The Ballbpoint Killed Cursive

[Bibliophage]

Are you saying that I shouldn't be using my slide rule?

 

I use cursive every day. As an IT consultant, I've found that writing things down 1) helps me keep things straight, and 2) is faster than trying to pull out an electronic device constantly. I also don't have to recharge the batteries in my blank book or my time sheets.

[Noihvo]

Are you saying that I shouldn't be using my slide rule?

 

I use cursive every day. As an IT consultant, I've found that writing things down 1) helps me keep things straight, and 2) is faster than trying to pull out an electronic device constantly. I also don't have to recharge the batteries in my blank book or my time sheets.

 

[wallylynn]

> cursive is now useless as a practical skill. Even if it is still a beautiful skill.

 

Penmanship is a beautiful skill. Cursive is what doctors scribble.

[BaronWulfraed]

> cursive is now useless as a practical skill. Even if it is still a beautiful skill.

 

Penmanship is a beautiful skill. Cursive is what doctors scribble.

Your doctor still scribbles? For most of the last decade, mine have used keyboards. Prescriptions are submitted electronically.

 

I suppose if yours does scribble, then it leads to cursing by the ones having to read it...

[corgicoupe]

I don't think cursive is a necessity but legibility certainly is, and that does require a proper grip on the writing tool.

[Zookie]

I learned cursive in grade school, either the Palmer or Zaner-Blozer method, I don't recall which.

The powers that be also taught us speed reading.

Now (54 years later), I read really fast, remember what I've read, and have good penmanship.

Learning basic skills is good for you. I've been teaching my granddaughter (7 years old) both of these skills. She enjoys it.

[TSherbs]

Many many teachers still teach cursive, as they do at the school where I teach. We are not mandated to do so, but we do so anyway. We don't require students always too use it, but we teach it as a skill. It has its uses. As I said above, it is total bunk that teachers don't care. We care a lot and have many curricular demands on our time. We actually care more about the particulars of what we teach than a lot of parents. It's our job to be professional and care about the efficacy of the particulars that we teach.

[countrydirt]

Many many teachers still teach cursive, as they do at the school where I teach. We are not mandated to do so, but we do so anyway. We don't require students always too use it, but we teach it as a skill. It has its uses. As I said above, it is total bunk that teachers don't care. We care a lot and have many curricular demands on our time. We actually care more about the particulars of what we teach than a lot of parents. It's our job to be professional and care about the efficacy of the particulars that we teach.

Thank you TSherbs! I'm a high school teacher, so I don't really have an impact on cursive writing, other than giving an example with my feedback. I can, however, complain bitterly to student's whose handwriting is illegible. And lest we all don our rose colored glasses about how wonderful we think we remember our handwriting was back at that age, illegibility was a curse even 40 years ago when I was in school.

[wallylynn]

 

illegibility was a curse even 40 years ago when I was in school.

Yeah, you have to go a bit further back than that. Back to when students had to drill for hours, and if you held your pen wrong, the teacher would rap your knuckles.

[Karmachanic]

As history and geography are no longer taught in some countries, and tests are multiple choice, it should be no surprise that writing is not taught either.

[countrydirt]

  Yeah, you have to go a bit further back than that. Back to when students had to drill for hours, and if you held your pen wrong, the teacher would rap your knuckles.

Believe me, I had that teacher in elementary school and we had to drill on letters. She used a drumstick or a wooden ruler to get your hand's attention. I still hate that woman.

[TSherbs]

As history and geography are no longer taught in some countries, and tests are multiple choice, it should be no surprise that writing is not taught either.

Writing is not taught...where?

[Olya]

As history and geography are no longer taught in some countries, and tests are multiple choice, it should be no surprise that writing is not taught either.

Where in the world are history and geography not taught?? And with "writing" I hope you mean only "cursive".. A skill that should absolutely be taught, but at the minimum one would expect printing to be taught!

 

That said, I wouldn't say the ballpoint killed cursive and luckily many countries still require fpens in school and teach cursive. If the school didn't, I'd do it myself to my kids, I know of other parents who do, who step in where the education system is failing kids.

[Honeybadgers]

I doubt that it was the ballpoint that has put pressure on cursive use. I think the ballpoint makes cursive writing easier than with fountain pens.

 

I was just playing around with a ballpoint for that, a fisher space pen and my new sailor pro gear multipen - they're inferior in every way when it comes to the actual experience of writing. Dry, skippy feeling upstrokes if not held abjectly perpendicular, and they require ungodly amounts of pressure compared to a FP that can just float across the page. I also noticed that the ball itself screws with the writing. The ball is rolling across the page and it will bite and grab and go on its own trajectory compared to the stationary tip of the FP. this makes my cursive look shaky by comparison and really requires a near death grip to tame.

 

I agree that I don't think it was what killed cursive. We as a society decided that we didn't value it anymore. But ballpoints, in my hands, are strictly inferior feeling on the page for cursive. Less smooth, less consistent, more uncomfortable, awkward, and with flat out worse results. Gel and rollerballs deal with some of these issues, so I've got a set of 0.4 zebra gel refills to replace the ballpoints in my new sailor pen, but even they, with a rolling tip, will walk around on the page a bit, which prefers a more vertical pen position and less comfortable grip.

 

I derive some personal amusement from writing spencerian cursive in my college classes and guessing as to whether or not the professor just can't read it and is too embarassed to say so, so they just give me an A, and the students in my classes that are the same age as my teenage foster kid. I had a girl sitting next to me that missed the previous day's calc notes, and she just sat there looking at my notes (which I write very carefully and clean/neat, I am kind of obsessive about note taking) for like five minutes without saying a word before just turning around and taking a picture of the garbage notes of the guy behind me because he printed.

 

There is an 18-21 year old girl in that class with a pilot 823 though. So not all hope is lost.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[pajaro]

 

I was just playing around with a ballpoint for that, a fisher space pen and my new sailor pro gear multipen - they're inferior in every way when it comes to the actual experience of writing. Dry, skippy feeling upstrokes if not held abjectly perpendicular, and they require ungodly amounts of pressure compared to a FP that can just float across the page. I also noticed that the ball itself screws with the writing. The ball is rolling across the page and it will bite and grab and go on its own trajectory compared to the stationary tip of the FP. this makes my cursive look shaky by comparison and really requires a near death grip to tame.

 

This is pretty subjective, but might be true of the pens you mention. Montblanc and Pelikan ballpoints can be better and require little pressure. Sometimes fountain pens do require some light pressure and diddling to get started. I personally found the Fisher Space Pen to skip and blob, and it is not a pen I use any more. While I like using some fountain pens, others are a trial. I think there is not so much advantage either way, just that I like two fountain pens for sentimental reasons. I have left off with almost all of the others, and use ballpoints for the grocery checklist. Grocery list done in cursive.

Edited March 10, 2019 by pajaro

[Honeybadgers]

definitely agree that it's subjective. But I will say that my handwriting is extremely "average" in grip, pressure, angle, everything. Extremely typical in every way. So my hand is a pretty fair benchmark for an average user.

 

Any pen that doesn't write the second nib touches paper is wrong and hateful and isn't tuned correctly, with few exceptions (superflex nibs)

[DiveDr]

My, my... I remember penmanship in grade school. I also took notes using cursive writing skills throughout my education. Back in the day, in public school, we had to use fountain pens for cursive writing practice. That was something, more of an art lesson than a drill. We were expressing ourselves as individuals, each persons handwriting was unique yet ascribed to the parameters we were graded on. The fountain pen, perhaps an elegant tool from a more civilized age...

[Karmachanic]

Where in the world are history and geography not taught?? And with "writing" I hope you mean only "cursive".. A skill that should absolutely be taught, but at the minimum one would expect printing to be taught!

 

That said, I wouldn't say the ballpoint killed cursive and luckily many countries still require fpens in school and teach cursive. If the school didn't, I'd do it myself to my kids, I know of other parents who do, who step in where the education system is failing kids.

 

I'd rather not say what countries so that the thread does not degenerate.

Yes cursive. That is the subject of this thread, no?

[DiveDr]

Cursive writing is not part of the curriculum in the majority of public schools in the US and yes, my children have been taught how to write using the Palmer Method in cursive with fountain pens. They write better than I do! Block printing is still part of the curriculum but, perhaps just a matter of time before that goes the way of the Dodo as well, truly sad...

[TSherbs]

Cursive writing is not part of the curriculum in the majority of public schools in the US and yes, my children have been taught how to write using the Palmer Method in cursive with fountain pens. They write better than I do! Block printing is still part of the curriculum but, perhaps just a matter of time before that goes the way of the Dodo as well, truly sad...

Handwriting will never leave the primary curriculum.